Notes From A Very Small Island by Anthony Stancomb

​I read Stancomb’s first Vis chronicle a while back and found it enjoyable enough to not hesitate in grabbing its sequel.
The story goes like that…a well-to-do British gentleman of a certain age and his Croatian British wife chuck it all in and retire to a tiny Croatian island in the middle of the Adriatic sea.
Culture clashes ensue. Oodles of them.
It might have been a cliché but to author’s credit it never is. Stancombs are not a clichéd couple; neither of their age nor of their nationality. They are adventurous, open-minded, genuinely interested in engaging with the world around them – however strange that world might be.
And Vis is strange, at least to most Western mindsets. It’s slower paced, firmly stuck in the past, still has its Communist years peeking through. Yet the modernity is slowly creping in. Their country is about to join the EU (at the time of this book’s writing) and changes are all around.
The locals are grumbling. Stancombs catalogues their grumbles with a good ear for dialogue and a good eye for observation.
The result is a charming narrative of a place that’s different enough and interesting enough to attract attention and deserve an armchair visit told from a perfect fish-out-water-but-learning-to-walk perspective. All in all, a fun read.